Something Stable
by za
Summary: They'd both been clinging to something real...something stable.


Title: Something Stable

Author: mao 

Disclaimer: Velvet Goldmine belongs to Michael Stipe, Todd Haynes, and a lot of other people, most namely not me. I'm just a poor college student not trying to make any money from this, and if you sue me, all you'll get is some soda bottles. 

Author's Notes: Takes place just before the film. Written on just such an evening...

Warnings: Language

***

It's dark, and the spring storm clouds roll in heavily overhead. Brilliant flashes of white lightning light up the skies outside, showing him thick dark blankets of clouds, chilly spreads of gray and indigo and black. The rain falls in sheets so thick that no one dares venture into the streets - this is not the kind of storm in which children go out to play and teenagers go mud sliding. It's disturbing, heavy, and dark. Unnaturally so, as the high winds have brought down the power lines and lights all over his area of Brooklyn are out. 

Inside, the main room of his efficiency apartment is lit entirely with candles - long tapers set in bottles, tiny votives given by the girl down the hall, and a few tiny birthday candles dripping onto scraps of cardboard. One window won't close all the way, and he can hear the rain through the screen, the light sound of it hitting the pavement outside, the tinny "ping" it makes on the tin roof above his head. 

There's no distraction now. He's been avoiding this moment for ten years - he should have known it would catch up with him sooner or later. With promiscuous sex and drugs during the rest of the seventies, and then, as he got older, with work, burying himself in something - anything else - he tried to block out the time to think. 

And now there's no distractions.

Fuck.

He was skint, so he'd decided to spend the evening in, figuring he had the television, and could do some work if necessary on his most recent purchase - an electric typewriter. There was the record player to block out his thoughts - so long as he stayed away from certain records - and the Beta-Mac player. He'd rented a couple films he hoped to see. He even has an Atari, and has gotten fairly good at a couple of the games. 

But all those require electricity. 

God_dammit_. 

He wanders into the kitchen, a tiny room with grimy gray tiles on the floor and one cabinet falling from its hinges. At least he hasn't seen any roaches or rats since he'd moved in. He's far too realistic to think his building has no vermin - he's simply glad he's never run into it himself, and been forced to deal with it. He's never been much good with confrontation. 

He pulls a tin of soup from the cabinet, glances at the label. Chicken soup - what was he doing with that? He hates chicken soup. It makes him think of his mum, and being sick, and home - and no, Arthur, don't think about that now. Think about something else - anything else.

He puts the tin back, opened a drawer. Inside are pictures - photos, magazine clippings, newspaper clippings - hundreds of them. Thousands, perhaps. He removes the top one, looks at it closely. A beautiful black and white shot of Curt Wild - that night. He can feel a tightening just below the pit of his stomach at the image, at the memory.

If he closes his eyes, he can remember the thick blonde hair falling over his shoulder, the soft touch of Curt's lips on his skin - his lips, his neck, his shoulders, his -

He puts the photo back in the drawer, slams it shut, and braces his palms on the edge of the counter. Why is he thinking about that? He pulls back, withdraws back into himself, and goes back into the main room. He sits slowly on the worn futon, places a hand on his cat, massages her fur. She purrs softly, a melody weaving between the beats of the rain over his head. 

And then, slowly, it all comes back to him - everything he's been trying not to think about for ten years. He closes his eyes, and then the rain is gone, and the cat, and even his tiny apartment. He's on the roof again, and Curt's arms are wrapped around his shoulders, holding him closely, as if protecting him. 

As if clinging to him.

They'd both been clinging that night. They'd both been trying to hold on to something real, something substantial. Something that wouldn't last, but something...different. Something ephemeral, but tangible. There'd been no thought of the next morning, or the fact that they weren't friends, weren't lovers - that until that moment, it had been Curt onstage and Arthur in the audience, both glittered up, but a part of two separate worlds entirely. 

And both those worlds had been crumbling apart at the base - glam was ending, and neither of them had known what to do. Where to go. What would happen next.

All that had mattered that night was each other, was holding on to something stable. Something that would never change.

He rises slowly, opening his eyes, ignoring the annoyed sound of his cat mewing at him as he crosses the room and removes a record from his stack. In the candlelight, he examines it closely, searching Brian Slade's eyes across a decade for anything he'd thought was there to begin with.

Alien-green skin, fire-colored hair...and this man was his only connection to Curt Wild. He'd barely known anything about Curt until he and Brian had begun shagging.

And now Brian was no longer the fantasy, because he'd discovered something better. A god with golden hair and skin as warm as the tropics - with a voice that bounced between a rough American accent and - because he spent so much time overseas - a softer, more polished British sound. 

He wishes suddenly he could play one of his old Curt Wild records. 

And he tells himself, that's the great thing about being a groupie - you can go home, turn on a song, and hear your old friends. Think of good times. Smile and laugh, as if they were there, and not worry or think about the fact that you'll never see them again and they don't remember your name or face from ten years ago.

A click behind him, and he turns.

The clock is back on.

The power must be back. 


End file.
